How does the epic history of Abraham’s descendants relate to the overall story of salvation? Ancient ideas about family are key to the logic of both the Old and New Testaments.

I recently posted the article “Where Family is Everything,” which describes a Somali person who defines his or her identity entirely in terms of the larger family. Biblical peoples thought much this way too. Here’s an interesting exercise for you – try giving your own biblical “self-introduction.” Nowadays you’d tell about yourself to someone new [...]

Our modern, Western culture revolves around the individual. In the biblical world, family was everything. What does that actually mean though, in terms of how they thought? I found a fascinating description of this worldview in The Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard Kapuscinski, as he describes the peoples he encounters throughout his travels in [...]

You have to admit, some Bible passages are real head-scratchers. For instance, in Isaiah 43:25 (and elsewhere) God says, “I will not remember your sins.” But how can God, in his infinite intellect, forget something? And what does he expect of us, since we pray, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin [...]

One hazy late August morning a few years ago, I nearly lost my way in the desert. I was so dehydrated, deflated and defeated, that I nearly gave up the hike. For nearly a year I had been trekking through the Torah week by week for my morning Bible study, taking part in the centuries-old [...]